University of Virginia Library

OF some college students it has been said that, in order to pass their examinations, they will deceive and cheat their kind professors. This may or may not be true. One only can shudder and pass hurriedly on. But whatever others may have done, when young Peter Hallowell in his senior year came up for those final examinations which, should he pass them even by a nose, would gain him his degree, he did not cheat. He may have been too honest, too confident, too lazy, but Peter did not cheat. It was the professors who cheated.

At Stillwater College, on each subject on which you are examined you can score a possible hundred. That means perfection, and in the brief history of Stillwater, which is a very new college, only one man has attained it. After graduating he "accepted a position'' in an asylum for the insane, from which he was promoted later to the poor-house, where he died. Many Stillwater undergraduates studied his career and, lest they also should attain perfection, were afraid to study anything else. Among these Peter was by far the most afraid.

The marking system at Stillwater is as follows: If in all the subjects in which you have been examined your marks added together give you an average of ninety, you are passed "with honors''; if of seventy-five, you pass "with distinction''; if of fifty, you just "pass.'' It is not unlike the grocer's nice adjustment of fresh eggs, good eggs, and eggs. The whole college knew that if Peter got in among the eggs he would be lucky, but the professors and instructors of Stillwater were determined that, no matter what young Hallowell might do to prevent it, they would see that he passed his examinations. And they constituted the jury of awards. Their interest in Peter was not because they loved him so much, but because each loved his own vine-covered cottage, his salary, and his dignified title the more. And each knew that that one of the faculty who dared to flunk the son of old man Hallowell, who had endowed Stillwater, who supported Stillwater, and who might be expected to go on supporting Stillwater indefinitely, might also at the same time hand in his official resignation.

Chancellor Black, the head of Stillwater, was an up-to-date college president. If he did not actually run after money he went where money was, and it was not his habit to be downright

rude to those who possessed it. And if any three-thousand-dollar-a-year professor, through a too strict respect for Stillwater's standards of learning, should lose to that institution a half-million-dollar observatory, swimming-pool, or gymnasium, he was the sort of college president who would see to it that the college lost also the services of that too conscientious instructor.

He did not put this in writing or in words, but just before the June examinations, when on the campus he met one of the faculty, he would inquire with kindly interest as to the standing of young Hallowell.

"That is too bad!'' he would exclaim, but more in sorrow than in anger. "Still, I hope the boy can pull through. He is his dear father's pride, and his father's heart is set upon his son's obtaining his degree. Let us hope he will pull through.''

For four years every professor had been pulling Peter through, and the conscience of each had become calloused. They had only once more to shove him through and they would be free of him forever. And so, although they did not conspire together, each knew that of the firing squad that was to aim Its rifles at Peter, his rifle would hold the blank cartridge.

The only one of them who did not know this was Doctor Henry Gilman. Doctor Gilman

was the professor of ancient and modern history at Stillwater, and greatly respected and loved. He also was the author of those well-known text-books, "The Founders of Islam,'' and "The Rise and Fall of the Turkish Empire.'' This latter work, in five volumes, had been not unfavorably compared to Gibbon's "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.'' The original newspaper comment, dated some thirty years back, the doctor had preserved, and would produce it, now somewhat frayed and worn, and read it to visitors. He knew it by heart, but to him it always possessed a contemporary and news interest.

"Here is a review of the history,'' he would say—he always referred to it as "the'' history —"that I came across in my Transcript.''

In the eyes of Doctor Gilman thirty years was so brief a period that it was as though the clipping had been printed the previous afternoon.

The members of his class who were examined on the "Rise and Fall,'' and who invariably came to grief over it, referred to it briefly as "the Fall,'' sometimes feelingly as "the —Fall.'' "The'' history began when Constantinople was Byzantium, skipped lightly over six centuries to Constantine, and in the last two volumes finished up the Mohammeds with the

downfall of the fourth one and the coming of Suleiman. Since Suleiman, Doctor Gilman did not recognize Turkey as being on the map. When his history said the Turkish Empire had fallen, then the Turkish Empire fell. Once Chancellor Black suggested that he add a sixth volume that would cover the last three centuries.

"In a history of Turkey issued as a textbook,'' said the chancellor, "I think the Russian-Turkish War should be included.''

Doctor Gilman, from behind his gold-rimmed spectacles, gazed at him in mild reproach.

"The war in the Crimea!'' he exclaimed. "Why, I was alive at the time. I know all about it. That is not history.''

Accordingly, it followed that to a man who since the seventeenth century knew of no event of interest, Cyrus Hallowell, of the meat-packers' trust, was not an imposing figure. And to such a man the son of Cyrus Hallowell was but an ignorant young savage, to whom "the'' history certainty had been a closed book. And so when Peter returned his examination paper in a condition almost as spotless as that in which he had received it, Doctor Gilman carefully and conscientiously, with malice toward none and with no thought of the morrow, marked it "five.''

Each of the other professors and instructors had marked Peter fifty. In their fear of Chancellor Black they dared not give the boy less, but they refused to be slaves to the extent of crediting him with a single point higher than was necessary to pass him. But Doctor Gilman's five completely knocked out the required average of fifty, and young Peter was "found'' and could not graduate. It was an awful business! The only son of the only Hallowell refused a degree in his father's own private college— the son of the man who had built the Hallowell Memorial, the new Laboratory, the Anna Hallowell Chapel, the Hallowell Dormitory, and the Hallowell Athletic Field. When on the bulletin board of the dim hall of the Memorial to his departed grandfather Peter read of his own disgrace and downfall, the light the stained-glass window cast upon his nose was of no sicklier a green than was the nose itself. Not that Peter wanted an A.M. or an A.B., not that he desired laurels he had not won, but because the young man was afraid of his father. And he had cause to be. Father arrived at Stillwater the next morning. The interviews that followed made Stillwater history.

"My son is not an ass!'' is what Hallowell senior is said to have said to Doctor Black.

"And if in four years you and your faculty cannot give him the rudiments of an education, I will send him to a college that can. And I'll send my money where I send Peter.''

In reply Chancellor Black could have said that it was the fault of the son and not of the college; he could have said that where three men had failed to graduate one hundred and eighty had not. But did he say that? Oh, no, he did not say that! He was not that sort of a college president. Instead, he remained calm and sympathetic, and like a conspirator in a comic opera glanced apprehensively round his study. He lowered his voice.

"There has been contemptible work here,'' he whispered—"spite and a mean spirit of reprisal. I have been making a secret investigation, and I find that this blow at your son and you, and at the good name of our college, was struck by one man, a man with a grievance —Doctor Gilman. Doctor Gilman has repeatedly desired me to raise his salary.'' This did not happen to be true, but in such a crisis Doctor Black could not afford to be too particular.

"I have seen no reason for raising his salary —and there you have the explanation. In revenge he has made this attack. But he has overshot his mark. In causing us temporary embarrassment he has brought about his own

downfall. I have already asked for his resignation.

Every day in the week Hallowell was a fair, sane man, but on this particular day he was wounded, his spirit was hurt, his self-esteem humiliated. He was in a state of mind to believe anything rather than that his son was an idiot.

"I don't want the man discharged,'' he protested, "just because Peter is lazy. But if Doctor Gilman was moved by personal considerations, if he sacrificed my Peter in order to get even—''

"That,'' exclaimed Black in a horrified whisper, "is exactly what he did! Your generosity to the college is well known. You are recognized all over America as its patron. And he believed that when I refused him an increase in salary it was really you who refused it—and he struck at you through your son. Everybody thinks so. The college is on fire with indignation. And look at the mark he gave Peter! Five! That in itself shows the malice. Five is not a mark, it is an insult! No one, certainly not your brilliant son—look how brilliantly he managed the glee-club and foot-ball tour—is stupid enough to deserve five. No, Doctor Gilman went too far. And he has been justly punished!''

What Hallowell senior was willing to believe of what the chancellor told him, and his opinion of the matter as expressed to Peter, differed materially.

"They tell me,'' he concluded, "that in the fall they will give you another examination, and if you pass then, you will get your degree. No one will know you've got it. They'll slip it to you out of the side-door like a cold potato to a tramp. The only thing people will know is that when your classmates stood up and got their parchments—the thing they'd been working for for four years, the only reason for their going to college at all—you were not among those present. That's your fault; but if you don't get your degree next fall that will be my fault. I've supported you through college and you've failed to deliver the goods. Now you deliver them next fall, or you can support yourself.''

"That will be all right,'' said Peter humbly; "I'll pass next fall.''

"I'm going to make sure of that,'' said Hallowell senior. "To-morrow you will take all those history books that you did not open, especially Gilman's `Rise and Fall,' which it seems you have not even purchased, and you will travel for the entire summer with a private tutor—''

Peter, who had personally conducted the foot-ball and base-ball teams over half of the Middle States and daily bullied and browbeat them, protested with indignation.

"I won't travel with a private tutor!''

"If I say so,'' returned Hallowell senior grimly, "you'll travel with a governess and a trained nurse, and wear a straitjacket. And you'll continue to wear it until you can recite the history of Turkey backward. And in order that you may know it backward and forward you will spend this summer in Turkey—in Constantinople—until I send you permission to come home.

"Constantinople!'' yelled Peter. "In August! Are you serious?''

"Do I look it?'' asked Peter's father. He did.

"In Constantinople,'' explained Mr. Hallowell senior, "there will be nothing to distract you from your studies, and in spite of yourself every minute you will be imbibing history and local color.''

"I'll be imbibing fever,'' returned Peter, "and sunstroke and sudden death. If you want to get rid of me, why don't you send me to the island where they sent Dreyfus? It's quicker. You don't have to go to Turkey to study about Turkey.''

"You do!'' said his father.

Peter did not wait for the festivities of commencement week. All day he hid in his room, packing his belongings or giving them away to the members of his class, who came to tell him what a rotten shame it was, and to bid him good-by. They loved Peter for himself alone, and at losing him were loyally enraged. They desired publicly to express their sentiments, and to that end they planned a mock trial of the "Rise and Fall,'' at which a packed jury would sentence it to cremation. They planned also to hang Doctor Gilman in effigy. The effigy with a rope round its neck was even then awaiting mob violence. It was complete to the silver-white beard and the gold spectacles. But Peter squashed both demonstrations. He did not know Doctor Gilman had been forced to resign, but he protested that the horse-play of his friends would make him appear a bad loser.

"It would look, boys,'' he said, "as though I wouldn't take my medicine. Looks like kicking against the umpire's decision. Old Gilman fought fair. He gave me just what was coming to me. I think a darn sight more of him than I do of that bunch of boot-lickers that had the colossal nerve to pretend I scored fifty!''

Doctor Gilman sat in his cottage that stood on the edge of the campus, gazing at a plaster bust of Socrates which he did not see. Since

that morning he had ceased to sit in the chair of history at Stillwater College. They were retrenching, the chancellor had told him curtly, cutting down unnecessary expenses, for even in his anger Doctor Black was too intelligent to hint at his real motive, and the professor was far too innocent of evil, far too detached from college politics to suspect. He would remain a professor emeritus on half pay, but he no longer would teach. The college he had served for thirty years—since it consisted of two brick buildings and a faculty of ten young men—no longer needed him. Even his ivy-covered cottage, in which his wife and he had lived for twenty years, in which their one child had died, would at the beginning of the next term be required of him. But the college would allow him those six months in which to "look round.'' So, just outside the circle of light from his student lamp, he sat in his study, and stared with unseeing eyes at the bust of Socrates. He was not considering ways and means. They must be faced later. He was considering how he could possibly break the blow to his wife. What eviction from that house would mean to her no one but he understood. Since the day their little girl had died, nothing in the room that had been her playroom, bedroom, and nursery had been altered, nothing had been touched. To his wife, somewhere in the house that wonderful, God-given child was still with them. Not as a memory but as a real and living presence. When at night the professor and his wife sat at either end of the study table, reading by the same lamp, he would see her suddenly lift her head, alert and eager, as though from the nursery floor a step had sounded, as though from the darkness a sleepy voice had called her. And when they would be forced to move to lodgings in the town, to some students' boarding-house, though they could take with them their books, their furniture, their mutual love and comradeship, they must leave behind them the haunting presence of the child, the colored pictures she had cut from the Christmas numbers and plastered over the nursery walls, the rambler roses that with her own hands she had planted and that now climbed to her window and each summer peered into her empty room.

Outside Doctor Gilman's cottage, among the trees of the campus, paper lanterns like oranges aglow were swaying in the evening breeze. In front of Hallowell the flame of a bonfire shot to the top of the tallest elms, and gathered in a circle round it the glee club sang, and cheer succeeded cheer—cheers for the heroes of the cinder track, for the heroes of the diamond and the grid-iron,

cheers for the men who had flunked—especially for one man who had flunked. But for the man who for thirty years in the class room had served the college there were no cheers. No one remembered him, except the one student who had best reason to remember him. But in this recollection Peter had no rancor or bitterness and, still anxious lest he should be considered a bad loser, he wished Doctor Gilman and every one else to know that. So when the celebration was at its height and just before his train was due to carry him from Stillwater, he ran across the campus to the Gilman cottage to say good-by. But he did not enter the cottage. He went so far only as half-way up the garden walk. In the window of the study which opened upon the veranda he saw through a frame of honeysuckles the professor and his wife standing beside the study table. They were clinging to each other, the woman weeping silently with her cheek on his shoulder, her thin, delicate, well-bred hands clasping his arms, while the man comforted her awkwardly, unhappily, with hopeless, futile caresses.

Peter, shocked and miserable at what he had seen, backed steadily away. What disaster had befallen the old couple he could not imagine. The idea that he himself might in any way be connected with their grief never entered his

mind. He was certain only that, whatever the trouble was, it was something so intimate and personal that no mere outsider might dare to offer his sympathy. So on tiptoe he retreated down the garden walk and, avoiding the celebration at the bonfire, returned to Elis rooms. An hour later the entire college escorted him to the railroad station, and with "He's a jolly good fellow'' and "He's off to Philippopolis in vthe morn-ing'' ringing in his ears, he sank back in his seat in the smoking-car and gazed at the lights of Stillwater disappearing out of his life. And he was surprised to find that what lingered in his mind was not the students, dancing like red Indians round the bonfire, or at the steps of the smoking-car fighting to shake his hand, but the man and woman alone in the cottage stricken with sudden sorrow, standing like two children lost in the streets, who cling to each other for comfort and at the same moment whisper words of courage.

Two months later, at Constantinople, Peter was suffering from remorse over neglected opportunities, from prickly heat, and from fleas. Had it not been for the moving-picture man, and the poker and baccarat at the Cercle Oriental, he would have flung himself into the Bosphorus. In the mornings with the tutor he read ancient history, which he promptly

forgot; and for the rest of the hot, dreary day with the moving-picture man through the bazaars and along the water-front he stalked subjects for the camera.

The name of the moving-picture man was Harry Stetson. He had been a newspaper reporter, a press-agent, and an actor in vaudeville and in a moving-picture company. Now on his own account he was preparing an illustrated lecture on the East, adapted to churches and Sunday-schools. Peter and he wrote it in collaboration, and in the evenings rehearsed it with lantern slides before an audience of the hotel clerk, the tutor, and the German soldier of fortune who was trying to sell the young Turks very old battleships. Every other foreigner had fled the city, and the entire diplomatic corps had removed itself to the summer capital at Therapia.

There Stimson, the first secretary of the embassy and, in the absence of the ambassador, chargé d'affaires, invited Peter to become his guest. Stimson was most anxious to be polite to Peter, for Hallowell senior was a power in the party then in office, and a word from him at Washington in favor of a rising young diplomat would do no harm. But Peter was afraid his father would consider Therapia "out of bounds.''

"He sent me to Constantinople,'' explained Peter, "and if he thinks I'm not playing the game the Lord only knows where he might send me next—and he might cut off my allowance.''

In the matter of allowance Peter's father had been most generous. This was fortunate, for poker, as the pashas and princes played it at the Cercle, was no game for cripples or children. But, owing to his letter-of-credit and his ill-spent life, Peter was able to hold his own against men three times his age and of fortunes nearly equal to that of his father. Only they disposed of their wealth differently. On many a hot evening Peter saw as much of their money scattered over the green table as his father had spent over the Hallowell Athletic Field.

In this fashion Peter spent his first month of exile—in the morning trying to fill his brain with names of great men who had been a long time dead, and in his leisure hours with local color. To a youth of his active spirit it was a dull life without joy or recompense. A letter from Charley Hines, a classmate who lived at Stillwater, which arrived after Peter had endured six weeks of Constantinople, released him from boredom and gave life a real Interest. It was a letter full of gossip intended to amuse. One paragraph failed of its purpose. It read: "Old man Gilman has got the sack. The chancellor

offered him up as a sacrifice to your father, and because he was unwise enough to flunk you. He is to move out in September. I ran across them last week when I was looking for rooms for a Freshman cousin. They were reserving one in the same boarding-house. It's a shame, and I know you'll agree. They are a fine old couple, and I don't like to think of them herding with Freshmen in a shine boarding-house. Black always was a swine.''

Peter spent fully ten minutes in getting to the cable office.

"Just learned,'' he cabled his father, "Gilman dismissed because flunked me consider this outrageous please see he is reinstated.''

The answer, which arrived the next day, did not satisfy Peter. It read: "Informed Gilman acted through spite have no authority as you know to interfere any act of Black.''

Since Peter had learned of the disaster that through his laziness had befallen the Gilmans, his indignation at the injustice had been hourly increasing. Nor had his banishment to Constantinople strengthened his filial piety. On the contrary, it had rendered him independent and but little inclined to kiss the paternal rod. In consequence his next cable was not conciliatory.

"Dismissing Gilman looks more like we

acted through spite ␣ makes me appear contemptible ␣ Black is a toady ␣ will do as you direct ␣ please reinstate.''

To this somewhat peremptory message his father answered:

"If your position unpleasant yourself to blame not Black ␣ incident is closed.''

"Is it?'' said the son of his father. He called Stetson to his aid and explained. Stetson reminded him of the famous cablegram of his distinguished contemporary: "Perdicaris alive or Ralsuli dead!''

Peter's paraphrase of this ran: "Gilman returns to Stillwater or I will not try for degree.''

The reply was equally emphatic:

"You earn your degree or you earn your own living.''

This alarmed Stetson, but caused Peter to deliver his ultimatum: "Choose to earn my own living ␣ am leaving Constantinople.''

Within a few days Stetson was also leaving Constantinople by steamer via Naples. Peter, who had come to like him very much, would have accompanied him had he not preferred to return home more leisurely by way of Paris and London.

"You'll get there long before I do,'' said Peter, "and as soon as you arrive I want you to go to Stillwater and give Doctor Gilman

some souvenir of Turkey from me. Just to show him I've no hard feelings. He wouldn't accept money, but he can't refuse a present. I want it to be something characteristic of the country, like a prayer rug, or a scimitar, or an illuminated Koran, or—''

Somewhat doubtfully, somewhat sheepishly, Stetson drew from his pocket a flat morocco case and opened it. "What's the matter with one of these?'' he asked.

In a velvet-lined jewel case was a star of green enamel and silver gilt. To it was attached a ribbon of red and green.

"That's the Star of the Crescent,'' said Peter. "Where did you buy it?''

"Buy it!'' exclaimed Stetson. "You don't buy them. The Sultan bestows them.''

"I'll bet the Sultan didn't bestow that one,'' said Peter.

"I'll bet,'' returned Stetson, "I've got something in my pocket that says he did.''

He unfolded an imposing document covered with slanting lines of curving Arabic letters in gold. Peter was impressed but still sceptical.

"What does that say when it says it in English?'' he asked.

"It says,'' translated Stetson, "that his Imperial Majesty, the Sultan, bestows upon Henry Stetson, educator, author, lecturer, the Star of

the Order of the Crescent, of the fifth class, for services rendered to Turkey.''

Peter interrupted him indignantly.

"Never try to fool the fakirs, my son,'' he protested. "I'm a fakir myself. What services did you ever—''

"Services rendered,'' continued Stetson undisturbed, "in spreading throughout the United States a greater knowledge of the customs, industries, and religion of the Ottoman Empire. That,'' he explained, "refers to my—I should say our—moving-picture lecture. I thought it would look well if, when I lectured on Turkey, I wore a Turkish decoration, so I went after this one.''

Peter regarded his young friend with incredulous admiration.

"But did they believe you,'' he demanded, "when you told them you were an author and educator?''

Stetson closed one eye and grinned. "They believed whatever I paid them to believe.''

"If you can get one of those,'' cried Peter, "old man Gilman ought to get a dozen. I'll tell them he's the author of the longest and dullest history of their flea-bitten empire that was ever written. And he's a real professor and a real author, and I can prove it. I'll show them the five volumes with his name

in each. How much did that thing cost you?''

"Two hundred dollars in bribes,'' said Stetson briskly, "and two months of diplomacy.''

"I haven't got two months for diplomacy,'' said Peter, "so I'll have to increase the bribes. I'll stay here and get the decoration for Gilman, and you work the papers at home. No one ever heard of the Order of the Crescent, but that only makes it the easier for us. They'll only know what we tell them, and we'll tell them it's the highest honor ever bestowed by a reigning sovereign upon an American scholar. If you tell the people often enough that anything is the best they believe you. That's the way father sells his hams. You've been a press-agent. From now on you're going to be my press-agent—I mean Doctor Gilman's press-agent. I pay your salary, but your work is to advertise him and the Order of the Crescent. I'll give you a letter to Charley Hines at Stillwater. He sends out college news to a syndicate and he's the local Associated Press man. He's sore at their discharging Gilman and he's my best friend, and he'll work the papers as far as you like. Your job is to make Stillwater College and Doctor Black and my father believe that when they lost Gilman they lost the man who made Stillwater famous.

And before we get through boosting Gilman, we'll make my father's million-dollar gift laboratory look like an insult.''

In the eyes of the former press-agent the light of battle burned fiercely, memories of his triumphs in exploitation, of his strategies and tactics in advertising soared before him.

"It's great!'' he exclaimed. "I've got your idea and you've got me. And you're darned lucky to get me. I've been press-agent for politicians, actors, society leaders, breakfast foods, and horse-shows—and I'm the best! I was in charge of the publicity bureau for Galloway when he ran for governor. He thinks the people elected him. I know I did. Nora Nashville was getting fifty dollars a week in vaudeville when I took hold of her; now she gets a thousand. I even made people believe Mrs. Hampton-Rhodes was a society leader at Newport, when all she ever saw of Newport was Bergers and the Muschenheim-Kings. Why, I am the man that made the American people believe Russian dancers can dance!''

"It's plain to see you hate yourself,'' said Peter. "You must not get so despondent or you might commit suicide. How much money will you want?''

"How much have you got?''

"All kinds,'' said Peter. "Some in a letter-of-credit

that my father earned from the fretful pig, and much more in cash that I won at poker from the pashas. When that's gone I've got to go to work and earn my living. Meanwhile your salary is a hundred a week and all you need to boost Gilman and the Order of the Crescent. We are now the Gilman Defense, Publicity, and Development Committee, and you will begin by introducing me to the man I am to bribe.''

"In this country you don't need any introduction to the man you want to bribe,'' exclaimed Stetson; "you just bribe him!''